FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT BANANA - PAGE 3

MUMBAI: The country's biggest banana exporter, Desai Fruits and Vegetables (DFV), is all set to invest most of Rs 60 crore on infrastructure facilities at Navsari, near Gujarat, it raised from Pune-based Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals for a 49% stake. The firm has been seeing a huge demand from Europe and the US, where demand for Indian fruits is growing significantly . Besides firming up plans to upgrade and expand its coldstorage units, sorting machines and packaging facilities, DFV has been actively considering to rope in more than 2,500 farmers in Navsari for contract-farming practices to take up total production to 3 lakh tonne from the current 60,000 tonne of premium banana.

ANANDPUR SAHIB: Imagine two cherubic five-year-olds, kneeling and holding either end of a banana in their mouths in the middle of a war dance. A blindfolded man dancing with a menacing sword in his hand suddenly jumps and slices the banana from the middle, without causing any harm to the little ones. Did you say, mind blowing? That is exactly how Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and better half of the Prince of Wales felt when she witnessed this remarkable act during the Gatka (a traditional dance of Punjab)

MANIKA ( JHARKHAND ): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today said programmes like green revolution, MG-NREGA, RTI and women's reservation were the party's initiatives as the Congress believed in taking all sections of the society along with it. "We brought green revolution, RTI and 50 per cent reservation for women? We believe in taking all the sections along with it," Gandhi said while addressing an election meeting at Manika in Latehar district in support of party candidate.

There is a mystique about north Queensland. From Cardwell up to Cairns, I travelled through a long green corridor of rainforests and banana plantation that brooded darkly as the Greyhound bus sped through the sunset-drenched countryside. The slender banana trees turned milk white as moonlight shimmered on them and vast fields of sugar cane made checquerboard patterns with vegetable patches. In between, big scarecrows with Halloween masks played mute pawns in nature's game of the seasons....

HYDERABAD: Calling for a "second green revolution" to enliven vast tracts of dry lands in the country, President APJ Abdul Kalam has asked agricultural scientists to work for doubling crop productivity in the next decade and to focus on value-addition, food processing and marketing. "Bringing the benefits of green revolution to dry lands is the great challenge before us. Unless agriculture is developed in an integrated way by linking it with food-processing and marketing, it will not survive," Mr Kalam said.

We could have blamed it on the rain. We could have blamed it on fatigue ? a series of long-haul flights. But, if my husband and I had become food-obsessed slackers in Bali, we really had only ourselves to blame. Everyone gorges on Bali ? the dining possibilities are endless and the prices are pleasantly low. Five-star hotel or breezy, open-sided bamboo cafe, the fare's delicious . Even more down-to-earth are the warungs (food stalls), snack bars and mobile carts that cater mainly to local workers and adventurous travellers who discover that low cost meals are really safe to eat. Surprisingly, authentic Balinese food is rarely enjoyed by the island's thousands of visitors as it's presumed that they won't like the spicier and unashamedly fleshy flavours.

PUNE: Two new agriculture export zones (AEZs) have been sanctioned in Maharashtra, taking the total to five AEZs. The two new ones, for bananas and oranges, have been approved by the ministry of commerce and industries recently. The state already has AEZs for onion, pomegranate and mango (kesar and alphonso). Officials of the Maharashtra State Agriculture Marketing Board said the total investment envisaged for the two new AEZs is Rs 61 crore. The Rs 32.3 crore AEZ for bananas, which will be located in the districts of Jalgaon, Dhule, Nandurbar, Buldana, Parbhani, Hingoli, Nanded and Wardha, will require an investment of about Rs 32.3 crore.

GENEVA: Top negotiators prepared to turn to fresh proposals Monday in a bid to nail a new global trade free trade pact despite growing discord and warnings that years of painstaking negotiations could unravel at the last minute. Squabbles among emerging economies threatened to shatter fragile gains in the fraught quest for an agreement, as top negotiators slogged on into a second week of talks. Delegates said much remained unresolved after a meeting late Sunday that sought to cement a tentative breakthrough on farming and industrial products.

Most people know that India is the second largest producer of wheat and paddy after China. But it is easy to forget that the country also leads in fruit and vegetable production ? the humble banana, brinjal and the ubiquitous potato. The fact that the country is the second largest producer of both fruits and vegetables is masked by the low per capita consumption of these commodities, the spoilage and pest infestation at every stage of production and processing. The helpful and regionally varied agro-climatic conditions along with a rapid increase in the demand for these products has led to a distinct shift in land use, especially in and around cities, and the possibility of enhanced exports of fruits and vegetables is attracting attention.

NASHIK: Ironically, the more delayed the development of a region, the better, for this not only helps in preventing a clutter of facilities, but also gives developers the scope to improve upon things on which they may have failed earlier. The crumbling infrastructures in many a metropolis across the country are examples sufficient to prove this, while this also depicts the disadvantages of jumping into the rat race as far as area development projects are concerned. As far as North Maharashtra is concerned, its growth all by itself at a placid pace has turned out to be blessing in disguise, for today it stands a chance to be a guiding star for all those who are looking forward to planned development of their respective regions.